Well, home again after 17 days in Sanur,Tuban and Sideman.
Our 8th trip to the Island Of The Gods
We travelled with our group of friends,all 27 of us!
Flew Garuda from Melbourne and seated in a group as requested.
Arrival and VOA no probs.
Transferred to our chosen accomodation for the first 6 days in Sanur at the Besakih Hotel.
I had arranged the accomodation with the hotels over the last 9 months and was anxious that everybody in our group enjoyed their trip (especially the first timers!)
Have stayed at the Besakih twice before and love the position related to eaterys on the beach and proximity to the markets.
Staff were friendly as usual and check in efficient.
The lumbung are still in need of some updating, especially the bathrooms, but what we expected and what i had warned our friends to expect also. Everybody happy!
The Sindhu beach girls are still a handfull and still complain about it being quiet even though all the hotels are full!
The younger ones (teenagers) enjoyed the Laser sports bar with it's bands each night. They also liked the Maccas delivery service at all hours of the night!
We ate at Warung Kama Sama several times,which is always great, Bonsai Cafe (busy!),
Bennos, a mexican place near the Sindhu Markets which i can't remember the name of but was also great and Tootsies.
Most days were spent walking,laying around and shopping.
Watched the AFL semi finals at the Laser Sports Bar.
Noticed that prices of groceries have increased in Bali also, when we visited Hardies Supermarket a few times.
We sponsor a child at SD3 Sobongan in Mengwi,as do our neighbours here in Oz ,who were travelling in our group.
We arranged a visit on the Saturday morning and ventured up to Mengwi with our mate Wayan "Mr lick".
Upon arrival we were greeted with the usual gang of excited children which was again great to see. My youngest daughter had brought a present from Aus. to give to her and the doll went down well.
Her mother was there and thanked us for the assistance which was nice.
I must say that the amount of trouble and time the teachers and students take to show their appreciation can be a bit off putting as the amount it takes to sponsor one student is so small for Australians.
All the children in SD2 and SD3 schools are sponsored according to Agung from Rotary Denpasar and they obviously appreciate this.
Our neighbours had also brought with them a large load of donations for an orphanage and they took these to the orphange the next day and apparently were very happy they had as the conditions are not very good at all.
We also had a day trip to the Bali Safari Park and the children had a great day , (as did the adults i think).
I do think the lion cub you can have your photo taken with is dosed up on sedatives though.The baby orangutan are fantastic and fun.
The safari park is good but i couldn't spend a whole day there at all.
I think it could be done comfortably in half a day unless you want to spend an afternoon in the pool area drinking beer as some did.
I actually prefer the Bali Zoo for viewing animals.
Well, enough for now. Off to Tuban and Sideman next.